Response to Ofgem’s discussion paper on ‘on-traditional business models: supporting transformative change in the energy market"

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Response to the European Union Committee Energy and Environment Sub-Committee’s call for evidence on EU energy governance

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[Review] Josphe Szarka, Richard Cowell, Geraint Ellis, Peter Strachan and Charles Warren, ed. (2012) Learning from wind power: governance, societal and policy perspectives on sustainable energy

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ICIF response to the National Infrastructure Commission: Consultation (cm 9182)

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Harnessing social innovation for energy justice: a business model perspective

This paper uses a business model framework to discuss how principles of energy justice - in particular, equitable distribution of costs and benefits, affordability, due process and greater participation in decision-making - can be embedded in business model innovations for energy, through social innovation. The paper discusses four cases at different scales (local, subnational, regional and global) to highlight opportunities for introducing principles of energy justice into the core of business models of companies. By doing so, the paper offers a critical perspective on the potential of business model innovation to be guided through a more broadly defined understanding of value enhanced by concepts of energy justice. The discussion of the four case studies— the Carbon Cooperative, Robin Hood Energy, RenEsco, and the Yansa Community Interest Company—highlights the importance of creating supportive wider environments for social and business model innovations, such as the development of skills, knowledge and social capital, through interventions coming from multiple levels and focused on different aspects of energy generation, supply and use (i.e. finance and technical implementation). Going against the grain of current policy, the study implies a shift away from upscaling innovations by taking them to the national scale, and towards creating supportive conditions for more local deals in different geographic locations

Response to the Parliamentary Energy and Climate Change Committee inquiry into low carbon network infrastructure

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Enhancing governance of energy and water interdependencies

Policy note based on 3 policy and industry workshops in 2014 and 2015

Governance of interactions between infrastructure sectors: the making of smart grids in the UK

This paper uses historical analysis to explore the evolution of interdependencies between the electricity and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors in the UK. It explores the role of governance in shaping the interface between these two sectors, and subsequent implications for smart grid innovation. The analysis focuses on three periods between 1940 and 2016, with distinct institutional logics: state ownership, privatisation, and transitions to sustainability. The interactions between the electricity and ICT sectors are analysed through Raven and Verbong’ (2007) typology: competition, symbiosis, integration and spill-over, drawing on social-technical transitions theories and discussed in terms of rules and institutions; actors and networks; and technology, artefacts and infrastructures of socio-technical regimes. The paper finds that a way to encourage more spill-overs and integration between the electricity and the ICT sector is through a more symmetrical and integrated governance approach that takes into account the needs and characteristics of both sectors

Written evidence submission to the Communications and Digital Committee Inquiry into digital exclusion and the cost of living

Digital exclusion is currently being addressed in an ad hoc and piecemeal manner, particularly for vulnerable groups of users such as social housing residents over the age of 55. There is insufficient coordination between different organisations working with residents in social housing, leading to cost increases for all, including residents. Digital services are creating new complexities which is leading to a mandate gap among key stakeholders operating within social housing schemes. This risks creating fractured data and services for organisations and users. A coordinated, whole-systems approach is needed to evaluate ongoing and future digital transformation initiatives. This approach will create more opportunities for cost sharing and cost reduction for users, residents and stakeholders involved in the provision of critical digital services in homes. Such an approach could draw valuable lessons for addressing digital exclusion from approaches to addressing fuel poverty

Understanding the material dimensions of the uneven deployment of renewable energy in two Italian regions

Drawing on empirical material from two Italian regions, we show how various material dimensions have affected the spatial distribution and deployment of renewable energy (RE), in particular solar and wind energy. The paper draws on an approach to the analysis of materiality originally developed in the extractive industries literature, including fossil fuels. The paper acknowledges that RE forms have significantly fewer material components compared with coal, oil and gas and the other extractive industries. Nevertheless, the deployment of RE, the process of turning renewable ‘natural resources’ into productive use as viable forms of energy through stages of energy conversion, storage, transmission and distribution has material aspects like those involved in the deployment of fossil fuels. This paper aims to show how understanding these aspects of renewable energy offers an opportunity to unpack and explain how particular RE paths come to be favoured or hampered, and yields useful insights into the spatial unevenness and variation of RE deployment at the regional level. Italy has introduced a system of renewable energy incentives and between 2010 and 2012 experienced impressive growth in the renewable energy sector. The paper shows how the significant spatial variation in renewable energy deployment in the regions of Apulia and Tuscany can be explained in terms of the influence that the material dimensions exercised in relation to renewable energy deployment processes. The paper suggests that understanding the material dimensions of renewable energy offers useful insights into how and why RE realises – and quite often fails to realise – its potential in specific forms, spaces and places